The story is about a family which runs a guesthouse in the mountains. No customers arrive for the first days. Then people start coming. And dying. So, they decide to bury the corpses in the backyard instead of calling the police. Chaos ensues.

Katakuris adds to the original movie: some claymation pieces (the budget didn’t allow to shoot the scenes which needed visual effects), musical scenes and larger than life characters; and there is less sexuality too.

Even though the original movie mixed the J-horror (K-horror?) genre with comedy, it firmly resides in mainstream. Katakuris, instead, is a-something that will probably never have a second specimen. But is it a good movie, you might be asking?

Well, if I didn’t think it was a good movie I wouldn’t waste time uploading this stuff. I’d like to quote this comment I’ve found on IMDB. The topic was: Better the original or the remake?

“They both have their merits. It’s said that director Ji-woon Kim could hardly even tell that Happiness of the Katakuris was a remake of Quiet Family. But as far as creative use of the musical subgenre, this is one of the best. Right up there with Dancer in the Dark. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all break out into song at emotional points in our life and start dancing with zombies? Well, maybe it wouldn’t be that great, but it would be fun to watch, like this movie.”

I guess it would be, yes. If you want to find out, just jump to the cross-blogged post and watch that scene from the movie. But check out this one first… An hommage to Svankmajer?